Profile: Barbara Morris-Welsh, KPMG Management Consulting

Barbara Morris-Welsh’s appointment as partner in charge of the financial management and benchmarking centres of excellence at KPMG Management Consulting in London is the latest step in a career which has spanned accountancy, senior management and academia. With over 12 years’ experience in industry, Morris-Welsh, FCMA, first worked as an accountant at Overseas Containers, going on to work in a series of senior financial and management accounting positions at Esso Petroleum.

Bringing her process management, performance improvement and programme management expertise into play, she joined KPMG in 1988 to work in the financial management specialism.

Preparation for her move to the Big Six included a one-year secondment to the CBI, a management traineeship with Hampshire county council and a senior research fellowship at Warwick university. Once with KPMG, Morris-Welsh was seconded for 18 months to the department of education and science as its accountancy adviser.

The focus of Morris-Welsh’s new position will be distilling KPMG Management Consulting’s research, training, knowledge management and marketing expertise into practical methodologies for changing business strategy. She says: ‘Our services are aimed at ensuring the finance function adds maximum value to the business. What makes our services unique is innovative thinking combined with practical application.’